how anissina became a feminist
by Clorinda
Summary: Takes place when they were young. Gwendal is anti-social; Anissina is flabbergasted. This is why he never wanted to become a knight in shining armour: the damsel in distress wants to crack jokes instead.


**Author's Note**: For **Isha Libran** ... happy birthday, 2009!!!!**

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**how anissina became a feminist**

**By **Clorinda

[Takes place when they were young.] Gwendal is anti-social; Anissina is flabbergasted. This is why he never wanted to become a knight in shining armour: the damsel in distress wants to crack jokes instead.

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_I_, Anissina told herself smugly, _am a genius_.

She frowned, taking another sip from her teacup. _That is already proven, given how I have my own lab before three hundred years of age, which just helps me patent the whole mad scientist shebang_. Correction required. _I am even more of a genius than what I had previously thought_.

(And _that_ was saying something.)

By the expression on her companion's face, he wanted to disagree.

"Yuck," pronounced Gunter, distastefully putting his cup down. "Anissina, this is the most revolting thing I've ever tasted."

She pouted. "But _Gunter_, I experimented to make it _just_ for you."

Gunter politely arched an eyebrow; she blushed, caught in the shameless lie.

In a corner of the adolescent Anissina's room, a giant machine (her latest brainchild) quietly puffed smoke (green out of one chimney, and blue out of another.) He regarded it with a mixture of fear and incredulity. It was difficult to describe the thing … sort of what would happen if the daughter of a washing machine eloped with a brick kiln to have offspring that was accidentally sat on by a meteor.

Anissina wanted to call it Coffee-maker-kun.

("Originally, it was supposed to be Pastry-maker-kun," she explained, "but the stuff that came out of it couldn't even pass for boiled custard.")

"So you really think there's no hope for it?" she asked miserably.

Gunter gave her a pointed look. "When have _any_ of your experiments had any hope in their futures?"

She shrugged. "I always thought it was because I was using _you_ as a power source, instead of good ol' steampower."

Loud, insistent knocking on the door cut off Gunter's indignant reply. "Come in!" he called out, usurping his hostess's authority, by way of petty revenge. "_Ow!_" He glared balefully across the table at her while she pretended to not have just kicked him in the shin.

The knob twisted and the door swung open just as Gunter forwent all sense of dignity and lunged across the table to pretend to mock-strangle Anissina. The last thing she heard was the bang of the door and Gunter's evil cackle, before she felt him being wrenched away from her by a force that knocked her off her chair.

She hit the floor with a hard thud, dazedly looking up at the attacker to see that he had Gunter in a headlock.

"Oi," she protested loudly, but not in prime aristocratic, Teutonic fashion either. The attacker, on the other hand, looked well-built and fit enough to be the pride of the race. He looked like he wrestled wild boars for fun, then ate them for breakfast.

"Let him go," she added, as authoritatively as she could from the floor. When the stranger didn't react, she tried an approach that never failed to work for the royals. "I am Lady Anissina von Karbelnikoff, and I command you—"

"I know who you are," interrupted the other, turning around (without releasing Gunter, who was turning blue in the face) to look at her. Any ordinary girl in her place would have wilted before that sneer. "The question is do _you_ know who _I_ am?"

"Prince Gwendal von Voltaire, firstborn," she said easily. "Honestly, you say it like it's difficult."

Gunter turned pruple from trying not to laugh; Gwendal flushed red.

It wasn't that Anissina _trying_ to disrespect him, but she'd spent so long in her lab that it was difficult to see people in anything but a strictly scientific light. To her, the only difference between Gwendal and Gunter right then, was their body weight, not even their hair colour.

Not that Gwendal saw it quite like _that_. As a red-blooded adolescent male who has just been bested by a pretty girl, he blurted out the only thing that mattered to him just then:

"Aren't you going to _thank_ me? I just saved your life!"

"No you didn't," she said coolly. "Gunter was just kidding. And who do you think you are anyway, jumping in to rescue people against their will, as and when you want?"

"I'm Gwendal von Voltaire, that's who I think I am," he said exasperatedly, accidentally releasing Gunter who collapsed in a heap on the ground, sucking in relieved gasps of oxygen. "And _he_—" an accusing finger pointed at Gunter, who was trying to crawl away, "_looked_ like he was trying to _kill you_. He was even _laughing_ evilly."

Anissina rolled her eyes as she hauled herself to her feet. (_The big moron with all his talk of chivalry hadn't thought to even help her up!_) "_He_ was just goofing off. It's what _friends_ do, which isn't something _you'd_ understand." Evil glare. "Given your inability to recognise a joke, I doubt you even _have_ any friends."

She knew she'd regret it the second the stupid words tripped off her tongue.

For a lingering moment, she was staring, stricken, into Gwendal's widened, blue eyes; then he drew himself up to his full height and said formally: Good day, Lady von Karbelnikoff. I'm sorry I interrupted you."

And he was gone.

Anissina slumped intoa chair, meeting Gunter's horrified eye. "I just blew it, didn't I?"

"All the way to Jupiter," he agreed.

"I think I'm going to be a feminist for the rest of my life. Or a lesbian. Boys are annoying little invertebrate gits."

However, she didn't have too long to contemplate that, as the door to her room banged open again. ("Oi, watch it! It's a door, not a catflap." Her angry protest died on her lips when she saw just _who_ it was.

"Uh — hello," she squeaked intelligently, before Gwendal entered, striding towards her and stopping inches from her chair. She started to rise, but his hands on her shoulders gently pushed her down on the chair again. His blue eyes were like St. Elmo's fire, and the grim mouth suddenly smiled.

Leaning forward until their gazes were inches apart, he whispered throatily: "By the way, I'm Gwendal von Voltaire, that's who I think I am," he smirked. "I thought it was an easy question."

"Took you long enough to think of a comeback," she smirked feebly. He was so close that Anissina thought that he was going to kiss her (or headbutt her) (whichever appealed more to his Big, Dumb Teutonic self.) The very thought turned her brain into a gelatinous pool of hormones and sticky apprehension, and no further coherent thought came to her. Just as well, because Gwendal took advantage of her stunned silence to press his lips to her, electrocuting every molecule in her body as he did.

"Anissina—?" broke in Gunter's tentative, enquiring voice. She closed her eyes, and groaned. _It was all a stupid figment of her stupid imagination_…

Warm breath grazed her earlobe. "You," a husky, foreign voice whispered wonderingly, "taste of cocoa. I think I like you … I mean, _it_!"

—- **finis** -—


End file.
